The Sunni extremists who control large swaths of Iraq recently presented Christians in Mosul with an ultimatum: Convert to Islam, pay a religious tax or die by the sword. The militants gave them until July 19 to comply, and by the deadline hundreds of the city’s remaining Christian families had fled from this cruel choice. The exodus goes far beyond the harm suffered by individual families forced to leave their homes.
The brutal crackdown, by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, an offshoot of Al Qaeda known as ISIS, has cleared Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, of a Christian population that has lived there for two millenniums. These attacks deserve the strongest possible international condemnation and may warrant prosecution as a crime against humanity.
Mosul was once among Iraq’s most diverse urban centers, home to Shiites, Shabaks, Turkmen and Yazidis, as well as Assyrian and Chaldean Christians. ISIS wants to create a caliphate that would straddle Iraq and Syria and impose a draconian medieval order based on a harsh interpretation of Shariah. Besides terrorizing the Christians, the group has also killed and kidnapped members of other religious and ethnic minorities since invading Mosul last month. Houses of worship and religious monuments have been destroyed. And, as Human Rights Watch reported, tens of thousands of Turkmen and Shabak families have fled Mosul and surrounding areas.
Although ISIS has increased the Christian exodus, it did not initiate it. Since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, attacks and purges by other extremist groups have also contributed to the Christian community’s decline. Before the invasion, there were about 1.2 million Christians in the country; the current estimate is no more than 500,000, and that number could shrink to 50,000 in a decade, according to Louis Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad.
The plight of the Christians, who are among two million Iraqis displaced by sectarian violence, must not be ignored by a world focused on other crises. Over the weekend, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon; Pope Francis; and Patriarch Sako condemned the Islamic State’s actions. Other world leaders must also speak out.
Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, promised to provide aid to Christians left homeless, but that is hardly sufficient. They and other minorities need to be able to return to their communities and live in peace.
But more than any Iraqi, Mr. Maliki has made worse the sectarian divisions and created an opening for ISIS to gain a foothold. His army is so fractured and weak, it collapsed in the face of the militants’ offensive and has been unable to retake significant territory, including Mosul.
Putting a stop to the persecution of Christians and other minorities is just one more reason Iraq’s Parliament needs to choose a new prime minister able to unify the country and lead the military forces to defeat ISIS — as Mr. Maliki is not that person.
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